A working-class appeal to stop the BNP

There is a real danger of the fascist BNP gaining a Euro-MP on 4 June. This leaflet, originated by Notts Stop the BNP but usable across the country, is designed to help activists make the case against the BNP on the basis of a working-class socialist answer to the social evils that the BNP feeds on.

Unfortunately many anti-BNP campaigners, including top officials of Unite Against Fascism and Hope Not Hate, plan to campaign against the BNP on the basis of unity with mainstream, consensus, New Labour and Tory politicians.

They will appeal to voters to vote for any of the mainstream parties in order to "use their vote against the BNP".

The problem is that, even if this stratagem works electorally - a better turnout of Tory or New Labour supporters depresses the BNP's percentage - it presents anti-fascist activists to disillusioned people, angry and frustrated by the effects of the capitalist economic crisis, as effectively supporters of the status quo.

If the BNP grows extensively, it will be because it has been able to appear to those disillusioned people as the only group with a radical alternative to the status quo. We must present a different, socialist, radical alternative.